System and method for transforming a component business model

ABSTRACT

Seamless transition from a Component Business Model (CBM) to a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) is achieved by converting a tabular representation of a CBM Heat Map to a Unified Modeling Language (UML) representation, and automatically converting the UML representation of a CBM Heat Map to a first iteration of input used during the subsequent SOA solution development using Service Oriented Modeling and Architecture (SOMA).

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No.12/258,892 filed on Oct. 27, 2008 and entitled “System and Method forTransforming a Component Business Model,” the entire disclosure of whichis incorporated herein by reference.

FIELD OF INVENTION

The present invention relates to a Component Business Model (CBM) andmore specifically to the use of CBM Heat Maps in Services OrientedArchitecture (SOA) based solution development.

BACKGROUND

Companies have long sought to integrate existing systems in order toimplement information technology (IT) support for business processesthat cover all present and prospective systems requirements needed torun the business end-to-end. A variety of designs can be used to thisend, ranging from rigid point-to-point electronic data interchange (EDI)interactions to Web auctions. By updating older technologies, such asInternet-enabling EDI-based systems, companies can make their IT systemsavailable to internal or external customers; but the resulting systemshave not proven to be flexible enough to meet business demands. Aflexible, standardized architecture is required to better support theconnection of various applications and the sharing of data. ServiceOriented Architecture (SOA) (see DEFINITIONS section) is one sucharchitecture. It unifies business processes by structuring largeapplications as an ad hoc collection of smaller modules called services.

These applications can be used by different groups of people both insideand outside the company, and new applications built from a mix ofservices from the global SOA pool exhibit greater flexibility anduniformity. In an example using a bank as the business using the SOAarchitecture, a bank customer would not, for example, have to provideredundantly the same personal information to open an online checkingaccount, and again for a savings, and yet again for an IRA account. Thisis because the SOA architecture facilitates data transfer, and/or usageof common data, between the three different account opening processes.Furthermore, the interfaces for opening each of the accounts wouldpreferably have the same look and feel and use the same level and typeof input data validation. Again, this is facilitated by SOA.

In this way, building all applications from the same SOA pool ofservices makes the processes: (i) work efficiently from a datastandpoint; (ii) work efficiently from a processing standpoint; and(iii) work smoothly from the perspective of customer familiarity andaesthetics. SOA is also more deployable to affiliate companies thanother architectures. An example of this, a travel services customer caninteract with a rental car company's reservation system from an airlinecompany's reservation system.

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is a design framework for realizingrapid and low-cost system development and improving total systemquality. SOA preferably uses the Web services standards and technologiesand is rapidly becoming a standard approach for enterprise informationsystems. Web services face significant challenges because of particularrequirements. There are many problems that are to be addressed whenapplying the SOA paradigm to a real-time system, which include responsetime, support of event-driven, asynchronous parallel applications,complicated human interface support, reliability, etc. As set forthbelow in the definition of SOA in the DEFINITION section, SOA servicescommunicate with each other. Communication between various SOA servicescan involve simple data passing, or it can involve two or more servicescoordinating some activity. Some means of connecting SOA services toeach other is generally needed in an SOA system.

SOAs build applications out of software services (see DEFINITIONSsection). Because services do not embed calls to each other in theirsource code, protocols are defined which describe how one or moreservices can talk to each other. This architecture then relies on abusiness process expert to link and sequence services, in a processknown as orchestration, to meet a new or existing business systemrequirement.

There were pre-SOA software architectures and/or techniques thatpromoted some degree of software reuse, specifically: (i) functionalsoftware modules and; (ii) predefined groups of functions known asclasses. However, these pre SOA software architectures and/or techniquesare different than SOA for one or more of the following reasons: (i)they do not use services (see DEFINITIONS section); (ii) theatomic-level objects of an SOA are often 100 to 1,000 times larger;(iii) SOA services are associated by an application designer or engineerusing orchestration; and/or (iv) the pre-SOA software architectures andtechniques do not otherwise meet the definition of an SOA (seeDEFINITIONS section). In the process of orchestration, relatively largechunks of software functionality (services) are associated in anon-hierarchical arrangement (in contrast to a class hierarchy) by asoftware engineer, or process engineer, using a special software toolwhich contains an exhaustive list of all of the services, theircharacteristics, and a means to record the designer's choices which thedesigner can manage and the software system can consume and use atrun-time.

Metadata preferably underlies and enables the SOA. Preferably, themetadata is sufficient to describe not only the characteristics of theSOA services, but also the data that drives them. Extensible markuplanguage (XML) has been used extensively in SOA to create data which iswrapped in a nearly exhaustive description container. Analogously, theservices themselves are typically described by web services descriptionlanguage (WSDL), and communications protocols by simple object accessprotocol (SOAP). Whether these description languages are the bestpossible for the job, and whether they will remain the favorites goingforward, is at present an open question. SOA is preferably dependent ondata and services that are described using a type of metadata that willherein be called SOA metadata (see DEFINITIONS section). SOA metadata ismetadata in a form so that: (i) software systems can use the SOAmetadata to configure themselves dynamically; (ii) software systems canuse the SOA metadata to configure themselves by discovery andincorporation of defined services; (iii) coherence is maintained; (iv)integrity is maintained; (v) system designers can understand the SOAmetadata at a reasonable cost and effort; and (iv) system designers canmanage the SOA metadata at a reasonable cost and effort.

A Component Business Model (CBM) (see DEFINITIONS section) isconventional. For example, US patent application 2005/0246215(“Rackham”) discloses a methodology for building a CBM. It isconventional for a CBM to include a heat map (see DEFINITIONS section).At FIG. 2C of Rackham, Rackham discloses an example of a heat map. TheRackham CBM and associated heat map are not disclosed to be an approachor tooling to consume a CBM Heat Map for SOA solution development.

US patent application 2007/0279416 (“Cobb”) discloses a computer programproduct for enabling and rendering business components of a CBM in aninteractive data visualization tool. The Cobb product includes one ormore heat maps. The CBM and associated heat map(s) of Cobb are notdisclosed to be an approach or tooling to consume a CBM Heat Map for SOAsolution development.

US patent application 2007/0021993 (“Chandra”) discloses an enterprisearchitecture that can be viewed through a Component Business Model. InChandra, a metamodel i integrates the model of the enterprisearchitecture with the Component Business Model. Chandra does notdisclose an approach or tooling to consume a CBM Heat Map for SOAsolution development.

US patent application 2007/0033211 (“Berman”) discloses a CBM thatprovides a logical and comprehensive view of the enterprise, in termsthat cut across commercial enterprises and industries. The Berman CBM isbased upon a logical partitioning of business activities intonon-overlapping managing concepts, at the three levels of managementaccountability: (i) providing direction to the business; (ii)controlling how the business operates; and (iii) executing theoperations of the business. Berman also discloses that merger andacquisition criteria can be used to develop a heat map of components tobe included in a divestiture or downsizing. Berman further disclosesthat a transformation plan includes transformation of technology into anew environment (often moving to a service-oriented architecture ormoving data/systems onto newly agreed upon shared platforms). However,Berman does not disclose that the CBM and its associated heat map(s) arelocated on or implemented by the transformation technology that isplanned to be moved to SOA. In other words, Berman does not disclose anapproach or tooling to consume a CBM Heat Map for SOA solutiondevelopment.

US patent application 2007/0038501 (“Lee”) discloses a CBM and anassociated heat map. Lee also discloses that the lower layers of its CBMrepresent IT architecture including a wide range of services implementedin IT infrastructure, such as service-oriented architecture. While theCBM of Lee, in part, represents an SOA, Lee does not disclose anapproach or tooling to consume a CBM Heat Map for SOA solutiondevelopment.

Description Of the Related Art Section Disclaimer: To the extent thatspecific publications are discussed above in this Description of theRelated Art Section, these discussions should not be taken as anadmission that the discussed publications (for example, publishedpatents) are prior art for patent law purposes. For example, some or allof the discussed publications may not be sufficiently early in time, maynot reflect subject matter developed early enough in time and/or may notbe sufficiently enabling so as to amount to prior art for patent lawpurposes. To the extent that specific publications are discussed abovein this Description of the Related Art Section, they are all herebyincorporated by reference into this document in their respectiveentirety(ies).

SUMMARY

Currently, there is no tooling support available to leverage a CBM HeatMap for SOA solution development. There remains a need for dataintegration methods and systems that permit use, reuse, and modificationof functionality in a changing business environment. To facilitate suchmethods and systems, a need also exists for improved methods and systemsfor deploying data integration functions. At least some embodiments ofthe present invention fill one or more of these needs. The presentinvention is directed to converting CBM related data (see DEFINITIONSsection) into a form suitable for implementation in an SOA solutiondevelopment environment. More specific aspects of the present inventionwill now be discussed.

According to one embodiment of the present invention, seamlesstransition from a Component Business Model (CBM) to a Services OrientedArchitecture (SOA) is achieved by a method of converting a CBM Heat Mapinto a format compatible for an SOA environment by converting a tabularrepresentation of a CBM Heat Map to a Unified Modeling Language (UML)representation, and converting the UML representation of a CBM Heat Mapto a first iteration of input for SOA solution development. In a furtheraspect of the method, the conversion to a first iteration is performedusing service oriented modeling and architecture (SOMA). In a furtheraspect of the method, the conversion steps are performed automatically.In another aspect of the method, subsequent to converting converting thetabular representation of a CBM Heat Map to a Unified Modeling Language(UML) representation, loading the UML representation of the CBM Heat Mapinto a modeling tool. The modeling tool may include rational softwarearchitect or a rational software modeler.

In yet another aspect of the method, converting the tabularrepresentation of a CBM Heat Map to a Unified Modeling Language (UML)representation includes parsing the CBM Heat Map, retrieving a pluralityof CBM elements, processing the plurality of CBM elements, identifying aplurality of UML elements that respectively correspond to the pluralityof CBM elements, and forming the plurality of UML elements into the UMLrepresentation of the CBM heat map.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, traceabilitybetween CBM to SOA is achieved.

According to yet another embodiment, a method of automaticallyconverting a tabular representation of the CBM Heat Map to the UMLrepresentation includes identifying a CBM heat map, parsing the CBM heatmap and retrieving CBM elements, creating a UML model corresponding tothe CBM Heat Map, identifying UML elements to correspond to the CBMelements, and forming the UML elements into target model.

In still another embodiment of the invention, the UML representation ofCBM elements includes Business Competency, Business Components, BusinessService and Business Activity stereotypes.

In a further embodiment of the invention, a method for processing CBMrelated data is provided including providing CBM related data andmodeling the CBM related data by a modeling language to produce a CBMmodel. In a further aspect of the method, the modeling step includescreating a business competency level of the CBM model, creating abusiness component level of the CBM model, which is hierarchically belowthe business competency level, and creating a business service level ofthe CBM model, which is hierarchically below the business componentlevel. In yet another aspect of the method, the modeling language is UMLand the CBM model is a UML model. In still a further aspect, the methodincludes, subsequent to the modeling step, converting the CBM model toan SOA service model. The converting step may be accomplished by the useof a tool. In a further aspect of the method, subsequent to the modelingstep, the CBM model is converted to a service model. The CBM relateddata includes a heat map.

In a further embodiment of the invention, a method for processing CBMrelated data is provide including the steps of providing CBM relateddata, and processing the CBM related data to produce an SOA servicemodel. The SOA service model may be a domain based SOA service model.The CBM related data includes a heat map.

In another embodiment of the invention, a system is provided including acomponent for automatically converting a tabular representation of aComponent Business Model (CBM) to a Unified Modeling Language (UML)representation and a component for automatically converting the UMLrepresentation of a CBM Heat Map to a first iteration of input for SOAsolution development. In a further aspect of the method, the conversionto a first iteration is performed using service oriented modeling andarchitecture (SOMA). In a further aspect, the system includes acomponent for converting the CBM model to an SOA service model. The CBMrelated data includes a heat map. In another aspect of the system, themodeling language is UML and the CBM model is a UML model.

In still another embodiment of the invention, a computer program productencoded in a computer readable medium for converting a CBM into ServicesOriented Architecture environment is provided including CBM relateddata, one or more modeling tools for creating a CBM model from the CBMrelated data, and one or more modeling tools for converting the CBMmodel to an SOA service model. In a further aspect of the computerprogram product, the one or more modeling tools include rationalsoftware architect or a rational software modeler.

In another aspect, a computer program product encoded in a computerreadable medium for converting a CBM Heat Map into the first iterationof input used during the subsequent SOA solution development via SOMA isprovided including automatically converting a tabular representation ofa Component Business Model (CBM) to a Unified Modeling Language (UML)representation of a CBM Heat Map to a first iteration of input usedduring the subsequent SOA solution development using SOMA.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a CBM heat map;

FIG. 2 shows a flow chart describing the steps for conversion of atabular representation of a CBM Heat Map to a UML representation;

FIG. 3 is a comparison of representations of a CBM heat map in SOAsolution modeling tools;

FIG. 4 shows transformation mapping between CBM Heat Map elements andcorresponding SOA model elements; and

FIG. 5 shows tools used in the process of converting a CBM Heat Map to afirst iteration of input for SOA solution development using SOMA.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Embodiments of the present invention provide a system and method formaking use of the Component Business Model (CBM) approach to integratingvaried business inputs to provide a view for arriving at businesssolutions. Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) as used herein shallinclude services that form part of the infrastructure of a businessenterprise. In the SOA, services can become building blocks forapplication development and deployment, allowing rapid applicationdevelopment and avoiding redundant code.

Reference is made to FIG. 1, which shows a CBM Heat Map 10 in tabularform. CBM Heat Map 10 is a representation of Business Components 12grouped into major categories or called Business Competencies 14. Thevariable number of categories are designed to cover various types ofbusiness activity in every industry. Components 12, which are the mainbody of the CBM map 10 are grouped into three accountability levels 16,such as Direct, Control and Execute. The Direct level represents allthose Business Components in the business that set the overall strategyand direction for the business. The Control level represents all thoseBusiness Components in the business that translate those plans intoactions, in addition to managing the day-to-day running of thoseactivities. The Execute Level contains the Business Components thatactually execute the detailed activities and plans of the business.

A business component 12 is the basic building block of an organization.It is a cohesive group of business activities supported by appropriateprocesses, applications, infrastructure and metrics. Components arenon-overlapping partitions of business activity, that is, componentsmust have boundaries for their separate cohesive groups of businessactivities that are simultaneously coincident with respect to a)functional purpose, b) organizational role and authority, c) skilllevels required, and d) operational and technical needs. Each componentoperates by calling and offering business services. The specializationand expertise of a component is encapsulated as far as possible. Acomponent works under a managing concept, which is responsible for eachinstance of the component over the lifetime of the instance. Often, andpreferably, a component defines a boundary with respect to othercomponents that enables the component to be outsourced with little or nodisruption of the business.

FIG. 1 shows certain components 12 being highlighted. The highlightedcomponents 18 are “hot” components, which need immediate attention. Dueto the existence of “hot” components 18, the CBM map 10 is considered a“Heat Map” (see DEFINITIONS section).

In order to convert CBM Heat Map 10 to a first iteration of input forSOA solution development using service oriented modeling andarchitecture (SOMA), the tabular representation of CBM Heat Map 10 ispreferably first transformed into a visual model by a modeling language(see DEFINITIONS section), which is preferably the Universal ModelingLanguage (UML). FIG. 2 is directed to one embodiment of a process 20 forconverting CBM Heat Map 10 into a UML representation. Initially, at step22, the existence of a CBM heat map must be verified. If a heat map doesexist at step 24, the process continues at step 26. Steps 22 and 24 areperformed by a component called a CBM Content Filter 25. Logic toidentify CBM Heat Map 10 is implemented in CBM Content Filter component25. CBM Content Filter 25 hides CBM files in the Project Explorer andtriggers a CBM Parser Component 27.

At step 26, CBM Heat Map 10 is parsed and CBM elements are retrieved.This step is handled by the CBM Map Parser component 27. This componentpreferably uses custom eXtensible Markup Language (XML) parsing toretrieve Business Competencies, Business Components, Business Services,and Business Activities from CBM Heat Map 10. Parser component 27 useslogic to detect “hot” components 18. Parser Component 27 capturesimplied hierarchy of the input text and transforms it into a form thatis suitable for SOA solution development. This parser supports CBM HeatMaps created using software such as, but not limited to, IBM CBM Toolversions 1.6, 1.6.1, 2.0, 2.1 and 2.2.

Once the CBM elements are retrieved by the Parser Component 27 a UMLModel corresponding to CBM Heat Map 10 is created at step 28 by a CustomUML Modeler Utility 30. The Custom UML Modeler Utility creates UMLelements that correspond to the CBM elements retrieved from the CBM HeatMap 10. The creation of the UML representation includes step 30, whereineach CBM element is processed. At step 32, a UML element thatcorresponds to the CBM element is identified. Next, at step 34, the UMLelement is created. The process continues at step 36 if more CBMelements require conversion to UML, and the process is repeated at steps30 through 34 until all retrieved CBM elements have been converted toUML elements. When no more elements are left for conversion, the UMLmodel is loaded into a Rational Software Architect/Rational SoftwareModeler (RSA/RSM). The Custom UML Modeler Utility 30 creates therelationship between the business component and the business process ina UML way.

FIG. 3 is a comparison of a representation of a CBM heat map 40 in UMLbased SOA modeling tools according to an embodiment of the presentinvention and a representation of a CBM heat map 42, which does notimplement any of the embodiments of the invention. CBM heat map 40 isrepresented using a UML profile that has been created in accordanceherein. As shown in heat map representation 40, the UML profile shows ahierarchical view of the following: (i) business competencies 44 (at thefirst level of the hierarchy); (ii) Business Components 46 (at thesecond level of the hierarchy); and (iii) Business Services 48 andBusiness Activities (at the third level of the hierarchy). This Hotmeta-attribute on Business Component stereotype will differentiae hotcomponents from the test. As shown in FIG. 3 there is a traceabilitylink from business component to a business process in UML representation40, which cannot be provided for in representation 42 becauseconventional heat map 42 can not be represented in a modeling languageprior hereto.

Business competencies 14 from heat map 10 in FIG. 1 are represented as aUML package with Business Competency stereotype 44 of a CBM profile.Business components 12 from heat map 10 in FIG. 1 are represented as aUML package with Business Components stereotype 46 of a CBM profileapplied. Business services are represented as a UML interface withBusiness Services stereotype 48 of a CBM profile applied. BusinessActivities are represented as a UML interface with a Business Activityof a CBM profile applied.

The conversion of the tabular representation of CBM heat map to a UMLrepresentation allows access by SOA modeling tools, which is highlyadvantageous. FIG. 4 shows the transformation of the UML representationof CBM Heat Map 42 to a service model (see DEFINITIONS section). Morespecifically, the SOA of FIG. 4 is a domain based SOA (see DEFINITIONSsection), and the SOA service model is a domain based SOA service model(see DEFINITIONS section). As shown in FIG. 4: (i) the businesscompetencies of the CBM heat map are transformed into domains; (ii) thebusiness components of the CBM heat map are transformed into functionalareas; and (iii) the business activities are transformed into functions.The intermediate conversion of the original CBM related data andassociated heat map into a UML representation is helpful to populate thefirst iteration of input used during the subsequent SOA solutiondevelopment using SOMA. Although the UML CBM model of FIG. 3 and the SOAservice model of FIG. 4 each have three hierarchical levels below theenterprise level, some CBM models, now known, or to be developed in thefuture, may have additional hierarchical levels.

Additional user interfaces for downstream activities may include, butare not limited to, service oriented modeling and architecture (SOMA)for creation of fine-grained functional areas from coarse-grainedfunctional areas; for the creation of subsystems from functional areas;for the creation of candidate services from functions; and for thecreation of candidate service references.

FIG. 5 shows tools for use with the conversion of a CBM to a SOA model.The CBM heat map is one of the major deliverables of a CBM and can beused as an input for the identification phase of SOMA. Functional areaanalysis, a service identification technique of SOMA is aimed topartition and decompose the scope of the business or project. When CBMengagement is complete, the CBM Heat Map can be used as an initial inputfor Functional Area Analysis. Business competencies containing hotcomponents in a CBM map can be considered as Domains in SOMA. BusinessComponents that are marked as hot in a CBM map can be considered asFunctional Areas in SOMA. Business Activities of hot components in a CBMmap can be considered as Functions, also known as Business Capabilitiesin SOMA. Functional Areas can be used to group functionally relatedservices and define potential subsystem boundaries used for servicecomponent identification. Functions can be used to map businesscapabilities to candidate services.

FIG. 5 shows how an IBM CBM Tool 60 can be used to create a CBM heatmap. A Websphere Business Modeler tool 62 is used to model businessprocesses. Traceability links 64 between Functional Area Analysiselements and CBM elements in the modeling tools 66, which enable SOA tobe used herein.

Although the present invention has been described in connection withpreferred embodiments thereof, it will be appreciated by those skilledin the art that additions, deletions, modifications, and substitutionsnot specifically described may be made without department from thespirit and scope of the invention as defined in the appended claims.

DEFINITIONS

The following definitions are provided to facilitate claiminterpretation:

Present invention: means at least some embodiments of the presentinvention; references to various feature(s) of the “present invention”throughout this document do not mean that all claimed embodiments ormethods include the referenced feature(s).

Service Oriented Architecture (SOA): any business process server whereat least some of the business processes are packaged as services and atleast some of the services communicate with each other; preferably underSOA, the business process server defines and provisions ITinfrastructure to allow different applications to exchange data andparticipate in business processes; SOA is not necessarily limited withrespect to: (i) programming language(s); (ii) degree ofinteroperability; (iii) communication protocol(s); (iv) degree ofintegration between application(s); (v) use of messages; (vi) level ofcomplexity; (vii) use of web services; (viii) hardware/softwarestructure of the process server and/or (ix) geographic and/or hardwaredistribution of the process server.

Services: intrinsically unassociated units of functionality, which haveno calls to each other embedded in them; services usually implementfunctionalities most people would recognize as a “service” in thecolloquial sense of that word, such as filling out an online applicationfor an account, viewing an online bank statement, or placing an onlinebooking or airline ticket order.

Component Business Model (CBM): a model of a business including aplurality of non-overlapping business components representing a targetstate of the business, with each component being a group of cohesivebusiness activities; preferably, the CBM includes the followingelements: (i) Business Components element; (ii) Business Competencyelement; and/or (iii) Business Service element and/or (iv) BusinessActivity element; preferably, the CBM includes a heat map.

Heat map: a set of data identifying at least one critical businesscomponent(s) in a CBM, without regard to: (i) whether the heat mapassigns a priority value to all components; (ii) the number of possiblepriority values used in the heat map; and/or (iii) the criteria and/ormanner by which critical components are selected.

CBM related data: any data that forms at least a part of a CBM; CBMrelated data may constitute or include a heat map.

Modeling Language: any standardized visual specification language forobject modeling by software engineers that includes a graphical notationused to create an abstract model of a system, referred to as a model;UML is one example of a modeling language.

CBM model: any model representing any CBM related data in a hierarchicalstructure including a plurality of hierarchical levels; CBM modelsinclude, but are not limited to UML models and SOA service models.

SOA service model: any CBM model suitable for use in an SOA environment.

Domain based SOA: any SOA that includes an organization hierarchyincluding at least the following levels (sometimes referred to as SOAconcepts): (i) domain; (ii) functional area; and (iii) function.

Domain based Service model: any CBM model suitable for use in an SOAenvironment.

Unless otherwise explicitly provided in the claim language, steps inmethod steps or process claims need only be performed in the same timeorder as the order the steps are recited in the claim only to the extentthat impossibility or extreme feasibility problems dictate that therecited step order (or portion of the recited step order) be used. Thisbroad interpretation with respect to step order is to be used regardlessof whether the alternative time ordering(s) of the claimed steps isparticularly mentioned or discussed in this document.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method of consuming a Component Business Model(CBM) Heat Map for Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) based solutiondevelopment, the method comprising the steps of: identifying a CBM HeatMap; at a first converting step, automatically converting the tabularrepresentation of the CBM Heat Map to a Unified Modeling Language (UML)representation; and subsequent to the first converting step, at a secondconverting step, converting the UML representation of the CBM Heat Mapto a first iteration of input for SOA solution development; wherein thefirst converting step comprises the steps of: (i) retrieving a pluralityof CBM elements; (ii) processing the plurality of CBM elements; (iii)identifying a plurality of UML elements that respectively correspond tothe plurality of CBM elements; and (iv) forming the plurality of UMLelements into the UML representation of the CBM heat map.
 2. The methodof claim 1 wherein the second converting step is performed using serviceoriented modeling and architecture (SOMA).
 3. The method of claim 1wherein the second converting step is performed automatically.
 4. Themethod of claim 1 further comprising the step of: subsequent to thefirst converting step, loading the UML representation of the CBM heatmap into a modeling tool.
 5. The method of claim 4 wherein the modelingtool comprises at least one of the following tool components: rationalsoftware architect or rational software modeler.
 6. The method of claim1 wherein the UML representation of the CBM heat map comprises: BusinessCompetency, Business Component, Business Activity, and BusinessServices.
 7. A method for processing Component Business Model (CBM)related data, the process comprising the following steps: providing CBMrelated data comprising a heat map; modeling the CBM related data byUnified Modeling Language (UML) to produce a CBM model; andautomatically converting the CBM model to a Services OrientedArchitecture (SOA) service model; wherein the converting step comprisesthe steps of: (i) retrieving a plurality of CBM elements; (ii)processing the plurality of CBM elements; (iii) identifying a pluralityof UML elements that respectively correspond to the plurality of CBMelements; and (iv) forming the plurality of UML elements into the UMLrepresentation of the heat map.
 8. The method of claim 7 whereinmodeling step comprises the following sub-steps: creating a businesscompetency level of the CBM model; creating a business component levelof the CBM model, which is hierarchically below the business competencylevel; and creating a business service level of the CBM model, which ishierarchically below the business component level.
 9. The method ofclaim 7 wherein the converting step is accomplished by the use of atool.
 10. A method for processing Component Business Model (CBM) relateddata, the process comprising the following steps: providing CBM relateddata comprising a heat map; at a first converting step, automaticallyconverting the CBM related data to a Unified Modeling Language (UML)representation; and subsequent to the first converting step, at a secondconverting step, converting the UML representation of the CBM relateddata to a Services Oriented Architecture (SOA) service model; whereinthe first converting step comprises the steps of: (i) retrieving aplurality of CBM elements; (ii) processing the plurality of CBMelements; (iii) identifying a plurality of UML elements thatrespectively correspond to the plurality of CBM elements; and (iv)forming the plurality of UML elements into the UML representation of theCBM related data.
 11. The method of claim 10 wherein the SOA servicemodel is a domain based SOA service model.
 12. A system for converting acomponent business model into services oriented architecture environmentcomprising: a processor comprising a non-transitory storage medium; acomponent for a providing Component Business Model (CBM) related datacomprising a heat map; a component for processing, using the processor,the CBM related data by a modeling language to produce a CBM model,wherein said component for processing is adapted to, at a firstconverting step, automatically convert the CBM related data to amodeling language representation, and further wherein said component forprocessing is adapted to, subsequent to the first converting step,convert the modeling language representation of the CBM related data toa CBM model; wherein the first converting step comprises: (i) retrievinga plurality of CBM elements; (ii) processing the plurality of CBMelements; (iii) identifying a plurality of modeling language elementsthat respectively correspond to the plurality of CBM elements; and (iv)forming the plurality of modeling language elements into the modelinglanguage representation of the CBM related data.
 13. The system of claim12 further comprising: a component for converting the CBM model to anSOA service model.
 14. The system of claim 12 wherein the modelinglanguage is UML and wherein the CBM model is a UML model.
 15. A computerprogram product encoded in a non-transitory computer readable medium forconverting a Component Business Model (CBM) into Services OrientedArchitecture (SOA) environment comprising: CBM related data comprising aheat map; one or more modeling tools for creating a CBM model from theCBM related data using a modeling language, wherein said one or moremodeling tools are configured to, at a first converting step,automatically convert the CMB related data to a modeling languagerepresentation, and are further configured to, at a second convertingstep subsequent to the first converting step, convert the modelinglanguage representation to a CBM model; and one or more modeling toolsfor converting the CBM model to an SOA service model; wherein the firstconverting step comprises the following sub-steps: (i) retrieving aplurality of CBM elements; (ii) processing the plurality of CBMelements; (iii) identifying a plurality of modeling language elementsthat respectively correspond to the plurality of CBM elements; and (iv)forming the plurality of modeling language elements into the modelinglanguage representation of the CBM related data.
 16. The computerprogram product of claim 15 wherein the one or more modeling toolscomprise rational software architect or a rational software modeler.